LG 65UH7700 vs 65UH6550 Review : What are their differences?

LG 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 are parts of mid class LG’s 2016 4K LED TV lineup. Although they are come in different series but in the market, they are sold with the similar price. Both of them are good TVs with affordable price, so if you are searching 65 Inch 4K TVs but have limited budgets, you can make one of them as your alternative choice. But of course, performance that offered is not as great as the series above like UH8500 or UH9500 series. So, what are the differences between them and which is a better choice between them considering they are sold with the same price? Let’s start to discuss one by one about them.

Short Review about LG 65UH6550

LG 65UH6550 is a cheap 65 Inch 4K TV with affordable price. Its picture quality is slight above average compared to most 4K TVs in its price range. Like most of 4K TVs which released in 2016, it also already supports HDR. But unlike the series above where they support both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, 65UH6550 only supports HDR 10 only. But unfortunately, although it already supports HDR, but its display specs is still far from what required for displaying HDR contents fully. So, if you hope to be able to enjoy HDR contents on the screen of 65UH6550 with the quality like what campaigned all this time, of course, you will be disappointed.

UHD Mastering Engine with HDR pro is the images processor behind good picture quality that offered by LG 65UH6550. On this panel, it uses IPS panel with edge light backlight that offers wider viewing angle. Additionally, for improving black level and peak brightness, there are local dimming technology, Ultra Black Panel, Ultra luminance technology behind it. There is also Color Prime Pro that uses 4 sub pixels RGBW technology for delivering wide color gamut. For minimizing motion blur, it is powered by TruMotion 120Hz based on native 60 Hz refresh rate panel. With Tru 4K Upscaler behind it, LG 65UH6550 also offers great performance when up-scaling lower resolution contents to near 4K quality. This is very useful t ensure you can enjoy all video contents in 4K resolution considering most of the contents that available in the market still have lower resolution than 4K quality. And with the excellent WebOS 3.0 as its smart TV platform, it offers attractive and intuitive smart TV experience with a lot of most popular apps available.

Short Review about LG 65UH7700

One level above 65UH6550, LG 65UH7700 is sold with similar price. It also comes with IPS panel, so viewing angle becomes one of the advantages that offered. Unlike the UH6550 that supports HDR 10 only, it already supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision format. Ad for processing HDR signal, it is powered by Super Mastering Engine as its main image processor and supported by HDR Super with Dolby Vision Technology. But like its cousin UH6550, display specs produced by 65UH770 are also not quite enough to display both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision fully, so you should search other alternative if you care about HDR performance.

On its panel, LG 65UH7000 also uses Edge-light backlighting and local dimming and also supported by Tru Back Panel and Ultra luminance technology for improving black level and peak brightness. For improving color gamut, 65UH7700 is powered by quantum dot technology. It is also a good performer when handling motion blur with TruMotion 240 Hz based on native 120 HZ refresh rate pane behind it. Additionally, 65UH7700 is equipped with great performance Tru 4K Upscaler that allows you to enjoy video contents with lower resolution in 4K quality sharply without any loss a lot of small details. And like other models of LG’s 2016 Smart TV lineup, it also features WebOS 2.0 as its smart TV platform that offers great smart TV experience. The other interesting thing that offered, its sound system is designed by Harman Kardon, one of the big names in Audio System manufacturers, so makes its sound quality is above average.

The Performance of LG 65UH6550 and 65UH7700

Picture Quality

We can see on comparison able above, they are powered by different picture engine when they are processing HDR or SDR signal. LG 65UH7700 powered by Super Mastering Engine with HDR Super and Dolby Vision while 65UH6550 is powered by UHD mastering engine with HDR Pro technology. The result, 65UH7700 is able to play both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision while 65UH6550 only supports HDR 10 only. The other difference is about their color technology where 65UH6550 is powered by Color Prime Color Pro while 65UH7700 is powered by Quantum Dot technology. Form their difference in technologies that has impact on the picture that produced, of course this also makes the difference in picture quality.

Both of LG 65UH6550 and 65UH7700 are not including “4K TVs” with deep black level and strong native contrast ratio. This due they use IPS Panel technology. Although both of them are already powered by local dimming technology and Tru black panel, black level and contrast produced is not as deep and strong as what reached by TVs with VA panel. In this case, 65UH7000 reach 0.088 nits of black level with native contrast ratio about 1150:1 while 65UH6550 reach about 0.095 nits of black level with about 1050:1 of native contrast ratio. Of course, this is not enough values for displaying HDR contents fully where HDR 10 need 0.05 nits or lower while Dolby Vision needs up to 0 nits of black level. Even for displaying SDR contents in a dark room, it is not also quite black. The blacks will look tend to grey when it is displaying darks scenes in a dark room. But even so, as long as you don’t use it in a dark room, the picture produced by them looks very good.

In other hand, although both of them are equally powered by Ultra Luminance technology, peak brightness that reached by them is not same. As we know, peak brightness is one of important component of HDR and for displaying HDR fully, this needs certain standardization of peak brightness. You need to know, HDR 10 need at least 1000 nits while Dolby Vision need much brighter that is about 4000 nits of peak brightness. Meanwhile, peak brightness that is reached by 65UH6550 is about 415 nits on 25 % window while 65UH7700 reach slight brighter that is about 520 nits on 10% window. On the smaller 2% size window, 65UH7700 only reach about 300 nits while 65UH6550 reach about 160 nits. This means 65UH770 offers brighter picture than 65UH6550. But even so, what reached by them is not quite bright for displaying HDR contents fully, even for HDR 10 that need lower peak brightness than Dolby Vision.

Moving on color performance, they are powered by different technology. LG 65UH6550 is powered by Color Prime Color while 65UH7700 is powered by Quantum dot panel. Theoretically, LG65UH7700 with quantum dot panel should deliver wider color gamut than 65UH655. But in reality, LG 65UH6550 can cover more color coverage than 65UH7700. In this case, 65UH7700 can cover about 84% of DCI P3 color space while 65UH6500 can cover about 87% of DCI P3 color space. But even so, what reached by them cannot cover all color space needed for displaying HDR contents fully where HDR 10 need at least 90% of DCI P3 color space while Dolby Vision need Rec.2020 Color space. Nevertheless, for displaying SDR that requires Rec.709 as the color coverage, what delivered by G 65UH6550 and 65UH7700 is more than enough. This means when they are displaying SDR contents, color of the picture looks very accurate.

One more the minimum standardization of HDR that should be met by an HDR TV is about depth of color where HDR 10 requires 10 bit depth of panel while Dolby Vision requires 12 bit depth of panel. Meanwhile, both LG 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 comes with 8 bit dithering. But even so, when they are processing 10 bit signal, the color gradation produced is as smooth as TV with true 10 bit panel. Color gradation looks very smooth even for all the darker color gradation.

From all display specs that offered by them, we can see LG 65UH7700 offers slightly better black level, contrast ratio and peak brightness while 65UH6550 offers slightly wider color gamut. But even so, overall, picture quality of 65UH7700 is slight better than 65UH6550 due its deeper black level and stronger native contrast ratio. But because their black level is not really deep and their native contrast ratio is low, of course they are not the good TVs when used in a dark room. As well as when they are displaying HDR contents, they just can display HDR contents but without the quality that is as expected of HDR itself, let alone for 65UH7700 that also support Dolby Vision where it requires higher standardization than HDR 10, of course its display specs is still far from what required.

Viewing Angle

Viewing angle is one of the advantages of G 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 as an IPS TV. Although its viewing angle is not as perfect as what offered by OLED TVs but at least it is much better than what offered by the competitor with VA panel. As we know, on VA TV, the quality of the picture usually started to deteriorate at 20 degrees off center and front. Both of them offer much wider viewing angle. Nevertheless, although both of them equally come with IPS Panel, 65UH6550 is even offers slight better viewing angle than 65UH7700. On the screen of 65UH770, the picture quality started to deteriorate at 35 degrees while on the screen of 65UH6550, the picture quality started to deteriorate at 42 degrees off center and front. With wide side viewing angle, this makes you easier when set your seat and TV in your room to get the best viewing and they are also very suitable to be used in wide room with a lot of viewers.

Winner : 65UH6550

Motion Handling

For minimizing motion blur and handling 24p contents, LG 65UH7700 is powered by higher level technology than 65UH655. As we see on comparison table above, LG 65UH6550 is powered by TruMotion 120 Hz based o native 120 Hz refresh rate panel while LG 6UH7700 is powered by TruMotion 240 Hz based on native 60 Hz refresh rate panel. The result, 65UH7700 offers faster pixel response time and better motion handling than 65UH6550. You will see clear and smooth picture quality without trail visible behind fast moving objects on the screen of 65UH7700 when you are watching sport program or fast movies. But on the screen of 65UH6550, motion bur is still noticeable following fast moving objects. In other hand, when they are playing 24p movies, they exhibit similar performance. Judder only can be removed when they are playing native 24p contents like Blu Ray Movies. But when playing 24p contents via 60i signals like movies from satellite TV or via 60p signal like movies from streaming devices, the judder cannot be removed completely from their screen. But because our eyes are not easy to detect judder, of course this is not a big issue.

Winner : 65UH7700

UHD Up-scaling

Both LG 65UH6550 and 65UH7700 are equally equipped with great performance UHD Up-scaling engine called Tru 4K Up-Scaler. Once up-scaled, 480p contents like DVDs or SDTVs looks good once up-scaled. Straight line in the picture even doesn’t look choppy at all. Additionally, small details of the picture also preserved well. If when up-scaling from 480p contents, the final images look good, of course the result will be better if the source is 720p or 1080p contents. The images produced looks sharper with small details are more preserved. Of course this is very useful considering most of the contents that available in the market still have lower resolution than 4K. In other hand, this also you make more comfort when streaming videos from content provider. You need to know, streaming directly 4K contents need high speed internet and much more bandwidth than streaming videos with lower resolution. This of course reduces the occurrence of “buffering” which would disrupt your convenience when enjoying videos contents from video streaming services.

Winner : Tier

Inputs/Outputs

Both of LG 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 are equally equipped with 3 HDMI Ports and 2 USB Ports as their major connectivity. Additionally, there is also 1 Composite In (AV In), Component In (RGB), Antenna IN (RF), Digital Audio Out (Optical), analog audio out, Ethernet, and RS 232C. Talking about their HDMI input lag, LG 65UH550 has lower input lag than 65UH7700. But even so, overall, their input lag is low. Of course, this is great for games. Even when you use them for games that require fast reflexes, both 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 offer great performance and games will not be felt laggy. But unfortunately, because there is no HDR game mode on their “picture mode”, the input lag is still high when receiving 4K HDR signals. This of course is not so good for HDR games.

Winner : 65UH6550

Smart TV

Both of LG 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 feature excellent WebOS 2.0 as their smart TV platform. In this version, there are some updates and upgrades that make its performance better. If you have found an issue on last version when use for streaming, in this version, this issue have been solved completely. Nevertheless, there is no much change in user interface design. The user interface is still simple and intuitive with “strip bar” at the bottom across the screen contains most popular and your favorites apps. Additionally, navigating between different menus is straightforward. As well as loading time of app and selecting between apps, it is also fast and responsive. Apps that provided are also very complete and varied. There are most useful apps available like YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Web Browser, LG apps and contents store, and many more. Essentially, WebOS 3.0 is the best smart TV platform I 2016 provided a lot of useful and interesting apps.

A bit difference between them is about their controller where LG 65UH7700 is equipped with LG magic remote in the box while 65UH6550 is not equipped. Nevertheless, if you want to get better smart TV experience especially when navigating, you can buy LG Magic Remote separately for 65UH6550.

Summary

Conclusion

As we have discussed a lot above, overall, both of LG 65UH7700 and 65UH6550 have a good picture quality. But because black level is not really deep and the native contrast ratio is weak due the use of IPS panel, they are not too suitable to be used in a dark room. When they are used in a dark room, the black area of the images will looks tend to gray. In other hand, the use of IPS panel gives it a benefit on the viewing angle where they offer wider viewing angle than other TVs that use VA panel. The other benefit point that offered by them is excellent WebOS 3.0 as their platform.

With the same price, which is a better choice between them? As we have discussed, the main advantages of LG 65UH7700 than 65UH6550 is about the level of TruMotion technology and native refresh rate panel where 65UH7700 comes with TruMotion 240 HZ with native 120 Hz refresh rate panel while 65UH6550 comes with TruMotion 120 Hz with native 60 Hz refresh rate panel. The impact, UN65UH7700 offers better motion handling than 65UH6550. Additionally, the other benefit is 65UH7700 comes with LG’s Magic Remote included while for 65UH655, you must buy separately. Meanwhile, although both of them equally use IPS panel, but LG 65UH7700 offers slight better viewing angle than 65UH7700.

Now the decision comes back to you according to your preferences. We have discussed a lot about their differences and now you will make a decision. But if HDR performance is including your main consideration in buying TV, they are not good options though both of them already support HDR, 65UH6550 supports HDR 10 and 65UH7700 supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision. As the competitor, there are Samsung UN65KU7000 and UN65KU6500 that sold with the same price and offer much deeper black level and stronger native contrast ratio, but their viewing angle is poor and peak brightness is not too bright. Finally, as your further consideration before you decide to choose one of them, there are a lot of opinions from their customers who have purchased one of them.

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